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January 29, 2007

Hide-and-seek on paper

Who's Hiding?Satoru Onishi

I love activity books that don't feel like activities. I prefer to trick my kids into doing something mind-bending and skill-building. Nothing kills initiative than turning learning into a chore, right?

So I love this little book of animal figures, 18 on a page, created with just a few colored shapes and black lines in perfect symmetry. First, you're introduced to the whole crew: Dog, Tiger, Hippo, Zebra, etc. On succeeding pages, you're asked to spot who's hiding on, say, a yellow page where Giraffe dispears from view (because he's yellow, right?) Then one animal might be crying, or sleeping, or turned around, all the way through the book.

You can teach them colors, shapes and animal names, and anything else that springs to mind on the simple pages. I'm hoping it gets my kids to notice more, to "read" illustrations and observe differences. Who knows? Maybe they'll even start noticing the mess on their bedroom floor.